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Reform and Segmentation in Monastic Fraternities in Low Country Sri Lanka

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Steven Kemper
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Abstract

The Buddhist monkhood in each of the Theravāda countries of Southern Asia—Thailand, Burma, and Sri Lanka—is segmented into smaller fraternities (nikāyas). In Sri Lanka these fraternities have proliferated since the early nineteenth century. This proliferation has been interpreted as evidence of a Buddhist reform or return to orthodoxy and portrayed against the background of Sinhalese society as a whole. In this essay I argue that the establishment of twenty-five such nikāyas in the Low Country of Sri Lanka can be better understood both as serving a variety of interests (of which reform is one) and in terms of regional groups of monks and lay people.

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , November 1980 , pp. 27 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1980

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References

1 Evers, Hans-Dieter, “Kinship and Property Rights in a Buddhist Monastery in Central Ceylon,” American Anthropologist 69, 6 (Dec. 1967): 703–710Google Scholar, and Monks, Priests and Peasants (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972)Google Scholar; Bunnag, Jane, Buddhist Monk, Buddhist Layman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973)Google Scholar; and Swearer, Donald, Wat Haripunjaya: The Royal Temple-Monastery of the Buddha's Relic in Lamphun, Thailand (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1976).Google Scholar

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5 Frankfurt a. M. and Berlin: Alfred-Metzner Verlag, 1966–1973Google Scholar.

6 Nikāya has been translated as either “sect” or “fraternity.” Neither translation is altogether satisfactory. Although Max Weber's definition of a “sect” as an “exclusive group of religious virtuosos” (The Religion of India, New York: Free Press, 1958, p. 6Google Scholar) is an accurate description of a Buddhist Nikāya, “sect” recalls the doctrinal differences of Christian denominations, which are lacking in the Buddhist case. “Fraternity” has its own problems but may be the lesser evil.

7 Tambiah, 1976, esp. chaps. 7 and 10.

8 Mendelson, , 1975, p. 172Google Scholar.

9 Malalgoda, , 1976, p. 181Google Scholar.

10 The importance of the Vinaya in the Theravada tradition is only now being recognized by anthropologists and textual scholars, but this emphasis on practice has been important since early Buddhism. In the Samantapasadika, Buddhaghosa's commentary on the Vinayapitaka, one finds this account of the first great convention. When the monks were seated, the elder Mahakassapa addressed them: “Friends, what shall we rehearse first, the Dhamma or the Vinaya?” The monks replied: “Sir, Mahakassapa, the Vinaya is the very life of the Dispensation of the Enlightened One; so long as the Vinaya endures, the Dispensation endures, therefore let us rehearse the Vinaya first.” The Inception of the Discipline and the Vinaya Nidana, Jayawickrama, N. A., trans. (London: Luzac, 1962), p. 11Google Scholar.

11 Kemper, Steven, “Buddhism Without Bhikkhus: The Sri Lanka Vinaya Vardena Society,” in Smith, Bardwell, ed., Religion and the Legitimation Power in Sri Lanka (Chambersburg, Pa.: Anima Books, 1978), pp. 212–35Google Scholar.

12 For the Thai and Burmese cases, see Tambiah, pp. 234, 387, and 519; Mendelson, pp. 25-26 and p. 63.

13 For an analysis of the structure of the Vinaya rules, see Holt, John, “Ritual Expression in the Vinayapitaka: A Prolegomenon,” History of Religions 18, 1 (August 1978): 42–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 The exact number of Nikāyas is hard to establish because of the lag between the time when a group of monks declares itself autonomous (or again part of its original group) and the time when the change is recognized by the registrar-general. Ferguson's Ceylon Directory, 117th Edition, which bases its count on these recognized groups, lists twenty-five Nikāyas as of 1976. The secretary of the Amarapura Nikāya, Pinwatte Devananda, recognizes only twenty.

15 The Laws of Manu, Buhler, Georg, trans. (New York: Dover Publications, 1969), pp. 1–28Google Scholar.

16 See Beck, Brenda, “The Right-Left Division of South Indian Society,” JAS 29, 4 (August 1970): 779–98Google Scholar; and Peasant Society in Konku (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1972)Google Scholar.

17 Appadurai, Arjun, “Right and Left Hand Castes in South India,” The Indian Economic and Social History Review 11, 2–3 (June-Sept. 1974): 216–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 In monastic practice, for example, the three groups can be sorted out in principle by their appearance. Siyam monks cover only one shoulder with the robes and shave their eyebrows; Amarapura Ramanna monks cover both shoulders after the Mon fashion. Ramanna monks can be further distinguished by their darker robes, palm-leaf umbrellas, and their practice of taking food only from an alms bowl.

19 During the 1950s the Ramanna Nikāya was split into two groups—the Mulika Ramanna Nikāya (original Ramanna fraternity) and the Amulika Ramanna Nikāya (“unoriginal” Ramanna fraternity). The conflict arose over succession to the leadership of the group and has been resolved since the early 1960s.

20 Green, Arnold, “Sinhalese Religious Organization in the Low Country,” 1967, p. 6 (mimeo.).Google Scholar

21 Here again there are exceptions. Two nikāyas—Vajiravansa and Swejin—trace their ordinations to visiting delegations of Burmese monks; thus, although they are grouped with other Amarapura groups, they do not owe their ordinations to any of the original Nikāyas.

22 Speaking of Upcountry villages, Gombrich, Richard in Precept and Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 280Google Scholar, states that the uposatha ceremony is performed only during the rainy retreat seasons. Arnold Green and I have found the same to be true in various parts of the Low Country.

23 Ceylon Daily News, June 14, 1976, p. 8Google Scholar.

24 See Phadnis, Urmila, Religion and Politics in Sri Lanka (Columbia, Missouri: South Asia Books, 1976), pp. 76–108Google Scholar.

25 The same is true of the Ramanna Nikāya, which as late as 1908 was ruled not to be a separate Nikāya, but another segment of the Amarapura confederation. See Malalankara Thero et al. v. Sunananda Thero, District Court, Tangalla 700, 1908, reported in 31 New Law Reports 259.

26 Tambiah, , 1976, pp. 209–219Google Scholar.

27 Diary, Police Sgt. Kahakachchi, Dondra.

28 An insulting name for Wiraratana.

29 This line is obscure in Sinhalese as well as in English, although the sexual imagery and consequent insult are not.

30 Perjorative expressions for the Karava and Goyigama.

31 Diary, Police Sgt. Kahakachi, Dondra.

32 See Malalgoda, , 1976, p. 150Google Scholar.

33 Steven Kemper, “Politics and Discourse in Sinhalese Buddhist Reformative Movements,” forthcoming.